Thursday, March 17, 2016

Boys falling in love

I found this wonderful article in the Huffington Post regarding boys. The article talks about sex and the way its taught in U.S. schools versus schools in other countries. It particularly speaks about how in the U.S. boys are often taught to not have sex or if they do to have protected sex in order to not get any girl pregnant or get HIV/Aids. In the Netherlands however, they are taught to about expressing love in a non-sexual way. Their form of teaching is that often boys are taught just to not have sex instead of actually expressing their "love" in a non-sexual way and given ideas of ways to do that. As discussed in class, in society it is the norm to teach or expect boys to be tough and emotionally invulnerable and not show their "soft" side. This often leads boys to not want to use the word "in love" and rather just expect their partner to be submissive and know that they care versus actually expressing it. In Dutch however they instead work teaching to express love and show a more soft side of them so that they can also bring that side out of them. I was even impressed when I read that when they surveyed U.S. teens about what is missing in the sex education classes, several of them said that they were not taught about love in anyway and that they would like to be taught about it. I think that this would be great to be brought up in schools and offered. I know that parents often say that at that age they don't know what love really is, but honestly you would be surprised. Also, even if they truly they don't know what it is, they should at least be educated on it and know more about it than just straight up having sex or not having sex.

3 comments:

Great blog! This was a great article and interesting post that I thought really tied well with what we discussed in class last week about things that are and are not taught in sex ed. The thought never even crossed my mind that we were never really taught about love in school and I cant believe the difference in how boys are taught about sex in different countries. Love is something that should absolutely be taught in sex ed classes seeing how love is the most important component of a sexual relationship(in my opinion).

I completely agree with Veja's comment! I had never thought about how the U.S. might compare to other countries in regards to how we teach sex ed. I think the differences say a lot about what we place emphasis on and why. I also think you made a good point about saying that our social contraction plays a major role in determining what we view as being important or appropriate to teach about sex. You are also so right to say that sex ed needs to be expanded on beyond just the "don't have sex" stance, which is unrealistic and lacking in many important ways.

I liked the article, because I remember discussing in class that sex education in the U.S. does not address the emotional feelings that can evolve from having sex. Sex is only one component of a relationship and I like that other countries are teaching students that love can be shown in many different ways besides sex. According to a an article by Thomas Lickona, Where Sex Education Went Wrong, he talks about how safe sex that is taught in schools does not protect students from emotional effects. Such emotions he describes as having spiritual guilt if someone is not expected to have sex outside of marriage, regret, low self-esteem, a sense of having been used, self-contempt for being the user, etc. From my own personal experience, I faced some of these emotional effects from my first sexually active relationship and I was never taught about these emotional effects in my previous education. Basically, the writer is saying that even though schools may teach abstinence and safe sex; contraceptives do not protect against emotional effects that will come from having sex. I also like how this article in relation to your article above addresses how sex education does not bring character into the lesson about safe sex. In the article, Thomas said character does not necessarily only mean being responsible, but it means being ready to commit to someone by understanding the relationship between love and sex. Sex education only teaches students how to be responsible through contraceptives, but it does not teach them how to responsible emotionally. Sex is physically and emotionally combined and there needs to be more of a balance of teaching both, instead of the physical aspect of it.